Social movements were seen as forces that led to disorder. Scholars influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx offered a different view of violent collective action. … Their research showed that poor people in urban areas had good reasons for protesting. They often resorted to public protest because they had no other way of expressing their anger and resentment against deprivation. … There are different kinds of social movements. They can be classified as: (i) redemptive or transformatory; (ii) reformist; and (iii) revolutionary.
According to the missing lines, what did historians like E. P. Thompson show informed the actions of the crowd and the mob?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Their own shared understanding of right and wrong
Option (1) Their own shared understanding of right and wrong — Correct. Historians like E. P. Thompson found that the crowd and the mob had a moral economy. This means a shared sense of right and wrong that guided their actions, so the protesters were not hooligans out to destroy society.
Option (2) A concern with how social structures enable integration — Incorrect. This was the concern of Emile Durkheim, who studied how social structures enable social integration. Elites with this worry saw protests as a threat to order, and Thompson's research challenged that view.
Option (3) The direction of trade unions and workers' parties — Incorrect. Trade unions and workers' parties led the old class-based political action of a later period. Thompson's crowd acted on its own moral sense, with no party directing it.
Option (4) A wish to change the personal consciousness of members — Incorrect. Changing the personal consciousness of members is the aim of a redemptive social movement, such as the Ezhava movement under Narayana Guru. It names a type of movement, and Thompson's point concerned the crowd's own moral sense.
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